The present invention pertains to the telephone equipment art and, more particularly, to a telephone control system which allows subscribers to make a series of telephone calls to third parties without the need to hang up the telephone.
The control system also permits subscribers to make one or more toll calls from a third party's telephone with the toll charges being billed to the subscriber's account or to change how the control system handles calls.
In the prior art, if a telephone user needed to make a series of telephone calls, they typically picked up their telephone call and placed a first call to a first recipient by dialing the recipient's telephone number. At the conclusion of the first call, a second call could be made by hanging up the phone (i.e. allowing the phone to go on-hook and then off-hook) and dialing a second number for a second recipient. This process is then repeated as necessary until all of the calls in the series of calls have been made.
This technique works reasonably well when the user (a telephone subscriber) is at home or at an office (or other place of employment). However, if the user is on the road or somewhere else, the prior art technique suffers from a number of drawbacks. Consider, for example, when the user is on the road and use a coin-operated telephone. If they make a series of telephone calls in the usual manner, they need to have a sufficient number of coins to place the series of calls. If the calls are toll calls, the user's need for coins increases significantly or alternatively the user is forced to repeatedly telephone the operator in order to make credit card calls. Similar problems arise if the user is at a non-coin-operated phone away from home (and office) (for example at a friend's house) and the user has a need to make even one long distance call which they would like to have billed to their home (or office) telephone account without the need (and added expense) of placing the call via a telephone operator.
Either way, the making of a series of telephone calls from a coin operated telephone or one or more toll calls from a phone which is not the subscriber's has not been very convenient in the prior art. The present invention addresses these shortcomings.
Also, there is a need for a telephone control apparatus which is remotely programmable. Moreover, the apparatus should it the owner thereof to reprogram it from a remote location after they have used the apparatus to make one or more outing calls. The present invention also addresses this need.